tionally confirmed on one hand, and on which the supreme reality of the human mind as the determinant of what is human, and of God as the ultimate expression of mind, can be confirmed on the other (3-4).
This summary is important for the reason that it lays the foundation for Descartes's discussion of the mind. Descartes's approach appears to be to construct a philosophical edifice for the whole of rational experience, and for that enterprise to succeed, a sufficient intellectual/rational foundation has to be laid. Indeed, as a whole, the Meditations seem aimed at explaining the reality of human intuition, while also accounting for the imperfections of such intuition. A second aim of the Meditations appears to be to account for faith in rational terms, and in this regard Descartes repeatedly makes reference to the role of God in determining, allowing, or qualifying the scope and limit of human mental capacity, or to the question of God's very existence. As will be seen hereafter, Descartes appears to have in view the object of directly connecting human rationality to the idea of God.
Descartes sets the tone for his discussion by approaching the very conception of the reality of mind through its opposite, doubt. Doubt, indeed, is according to Descartes the most fundamental or evident of human experiences: "All that up to the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived" (5). What follows is a description of innumerable instances of the kind of deception that lead to mistrust and doubt about the truth or reality of every experience. Typically, these are sense experiences, and Descartes cites in this regard "Physics, Astronomy, Medicine and all other sciences which have as their end the consideration of composite t...